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Monday, September 13, 2010

Many Boing Boing readers are familiar with the South African rap rave revolution known asDie Antwoord. Aseries of posts hereearlier this year helped catapult them from relative obscurity to center stage, bright blinding lights and all. Xeni blogged about them after her friend, photographerClayton Cubitt, was hipped to them by a pal of his who assisted on a Capetown video shootwhich resulted in this.

A month later, on their first trip to the US, Xeni and I had breakfast with Ninja— we talked about their crazy-fast rise to internet stardom, and hetipped us off that they were in the process of signing to Interscope. A few months after that, while I was at a friends birthday BBQ in Brooklyn, Ninja phoned me with a proposition. Xeni had told him about my previous life as a designer in the music industry, and they wanted someone who "got it" to help them design their upcoming album,$O$.

I accepted in a second, and we started brainstorming right then, on the phone. With some amazing photos Clayton shot as the base, we quickly arrived at a very clear vision of what the album would look like, including some costuming elements by another artist and friend,Gary Baseman, whom I'd introduced to the band after randomly bumping into him at Coachella and learning he was a fan as well.(full photoshoot creditshere)

I spent the next month working on thiswhile in Paris, and have been dying to show off the design ever since. Today, the banddebuted it on their websitewith a countdown to October 12, 2010 as the US release date. Since the cat is out of the bag, I thought folks here would like to see it right away.

In addition to this just being a really cool story of fans and artists coming together, it's been super fun to work with such a collection of creative and inspiring people. Looking back on the photos from that first morning when I met them, it almost seems like destiny.

Global release dates coming soon, as well as a whole new host of tour dates. In the meantime I can tell you, I've heard the album—and it's amazing.

My Favorite Blogs

Ian M. Sherwin Giclée

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All you art collectors out there. Here is a chance to get a Giclee copy of some of Ian M Sherwin work. Ian is planning on doing a whole series of Marblehead, Massachusetts paintings.His work is amazing.